•  
  •  
 

Publication Date

1998

Abstract

Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) in Dearbom, Michigan is a two-year institution of higher education serving a diverse student population of approximately 13,000 students. In addition to providing a broad array of technical and vocational programs, the College provides the first two years of a baccalaureate program. However, the transferability of these programs is not assured. In the absence of a mandated state-wide curriculum, two- and four-year colleges and universities in Michigan develop courses and programs independently, and the transfer of courses between institutions is determined independently by the respective departments. The end result is often loss of credit when a community college student transfers. Other problems faced prospective education majors as well. Students were justifiably apprehensive about the suitability of their academic preparation for the challenges they would confront at the four-year institution. To address this and other problems, HFCC initiated a comprehensive project to develop a structured teacher education program. The project consisted of two components: 1) creation of pre-education programs and 2) institution of articulated transfer agreements as a result of collaboration with neighboring universities. The success of this reform is underscored by a dramatic increase in HFCC pre-education majors from 354 students in 1994 to 697 in 1997, with 80 students designating minority status in 1994 and 179 in 1997.

Volume

1

Issue

2

First Page

47

Last Page

68

Rights

© Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Download

Share

COinS